Quote Originally Posted by delusionsofNORMALity
but truth is relative.
If you said "our relationship to truth is relative", I'd agree. The object and it's audience are two different things. What we hope for, however, is that our apprehension of the object is at least a valid (and useful) analogy - because that's all our ideas can be, is analogies or metaphores. If they were anything more, they would be the object.

your belief gives you a certain set of truths, a narrow view of reality that removes you from other possibilities.
I think it's safe for me to say you're probably assuming an awful lot about my actual beliefs which is incorrect.

to believe in "the great truth" or even a set of immutable truths seems foolish if you consider that everything is constantly changing.
Yes, our relationship to the truth is always changing. Personally, I think our metaphores have only improved with time. However, I'm still firmly persuaded to believe that the basic Christian metaphore is descriptive of reality.

the very idea of some great truth which contains the answer to the question of our existence seems to be nothing more than humanity's vain hope that they will some day be able to understand the processes of a universe to vast for them to comprehend.
That's the thing though, I don't think Christianity really claims to know the ultimate reason for why we exist, and would tend to say we cannot know this. Being told what will bring peace to a person and will reconcile them to the Divine isn't at all the same as saying more fundamentally "why?" I mean, why does anything exist as opposed to not? That is unknown, and probably will remain such, for we can only know as human beings know. That may very well be something beyond our ability to comprehend.

religion provides a simple solution where understanding is not necessary, merely obedience.
Some religions maybe. I can't speak for everyone.

science provides a more complex solution where by experiment all questions may be answered. both expose the vanity of man, believing that he is capable of influencing the infinite or that he is important enough to merit its attention.
If man exists, he already has the "attention of the Infinite." "Science" is a methodology, and when people usually speak of "science" they really mean "physical science." In classical systems of reason (including those which were formative to the origins of the physical sciences) "natural philosophy" or "science" as people call it now, was understood to be a type of "science", but not the only one.

Observation with the physical senses can tell us alot of things, but mainly only about itself. Physicality is like a closed loop, or a circle - it only knows itself via itself. On it's own, it has no appreciation of anything. Human beings OTOH are obviously "purpose driven", they are interpretive creatures. As such, he has "types of knowing" which go beyond mechanistic physics, which can only tell one that how "the ball rolls down hill", and not why the ball ultimately does this. "It just does!" is what it is reduced to. And that's fine, because that's all that kind of methodology is supposed to do.

So falsifiable experimentation cannot (by it's very nature, not by any kind of weakness - it's like expecting a pig to fly or being surprised a venemous snake will bite) "tell us everything." If you think about such a statement, it doesn't even make sense. You may as well say "sensation is everything." That we're having this lovely conversations proves that it is not.